The Devil’s Due by Boucher, Rita (free reads txt) 📗

to extinguish the burning sensation that seemed to radiate throughout his body. “No, ‘tis the mother’s milk of the Scots, not sacrilege, my erstwhile Lady MacLean,” he answered at last. “Uisgebeatha, we call it, MacLean’s Gold, a rare brew, famous throughout the Highlands for its taste. My grandfather filled many a purse with the profits from this liquid gold.” He held the bottle aloft in salute. “This batch was distilled before the Prince ever set foot on Scot’s soil and there has not been another to match it since Culloden.”

“Another aspect of Charlie’s curse?” Kate asked.

“Aye, so ‘tis said. Now you may either leave, or douse that damned candle. I came out here to enjoy the stars and you are spoiling it with the light.” He did not want her to see him like this, bestial, wallowing in the full measure of his darkness. With better than half a bottle down the hatch, the last thin veneer of civilization had already begun to peel away. He had to make her leave before that meagre facade was entirely gone, before he went down on all fours and bayed at the quarter moon.

The light went out with a gentle puff. Foolish woman, not to know her imminent danger. “I am being behindhand as a host; would you care for a swallow?” It was not so much an offer as a command. No gently bred female would countenance passing a bottle with a half, no, a three-fourths sotted rake. He fully expected her to run.

Trust Kate to do the unexpected.

“Only a dullard would disdain a well-ripened Scot’s whiskey,” came the reply.

“And you are no dullard, I take it,” Duncan said, deciding to give her another chance to retreat. “However, we have no glasses.”

“Did I request one?” Kate asked, “You seem to be doing well enough without a proper vessel.”

“Half-seas over, without a vessel, but well-pickled in the brine” Duncan remarked, “and three sheets to the wind.”

He heard a groan.

“Drunkenness is not an excuse, milord, for such word-mangling atrocities. Are you trying to drive me away?”

“Are bad puns the talismans that I must employ as the means of keeping my oath then?” Duncan asked, raising the bottle to his lips once more, hoping to blur the last outlines of her features, to make her but a voice in the dark, but damned if his eyesight did not seem to grow sharper, seeing every plane of her face with impossible distinction. Despite the lack of light, she seemed to glow more beautifully by the moment. “Very well, did you hear of the dolphins that took to abduction and kidnapped gulls for immoral porpoises? Or when Rowlandson published his caricatures of His Highness and his brother Cumberland sans corsets, otherwise known as the ‘Prints of Whales.’”

“Spare me,” Kate giggled, her eyes growing accustomed to the scarce light. But, try though she might, he was nothing more than a disembodied outline, a shadow within the shadows.

The chuckling sound touched his spine with heat and suddenly the night became warmer. “I am trying,” Duncan said, hoarsely. “Though it is driving me half-mad, I would spare you, but you do not seem to understand Kate. If you want whiskey, here. Take it!” He thrust the bottle into the night and her fingers lightly brushed his as she took possession of the bottle. “Take the rest up to your room and share it with your woman.”

Kate cradled the glass, still warm from his hand and put the lip to her mouth. It was strangely disconcerting, an unexpected communion as she took a slow small sip and felt the simmering sensation on her tongue. It slipped down her throat lightly, without a trace of harshness, spreading its heat with a languorous touch.

“Excellent,” she commented, handing him back the bottle. “I have never tasted the like of it.”

Duncan accepted it back without comment, then took himself a long, hard pull. Was it his imagination, or could did the taste of her linger on the bottle’s mouth, mingling with the flavor of the spirits? The potent mixture of woman and whiskey became suddenly difficult to swallow and he found himself choking.

“Such whiskey is a treat to be savored, milord. Not guzzled like gin or swallowed in hasty gulps like cheap claret,” she commented, coming round behind him to pound on his back.

“And what do you know of whiskey?” he sputtered, catching his breath. Surely, he had to be entirely cast away if a few thumps on the bare back could feel so incredibly sensuous. What if he were to turn, to reach round that waist and pull her close, to feel those hands upon his chest? But before he could pursue that ill-advised course, the hammering of her hands ceased and she stepped back, out of arm’s reach, but dangerously within the touch of his senses. Even above the liquor fumes, Duncan could smell her scent, attar of night, an essence of woman.

“Good Scot’s whiskey was one of my father’s few weaknesses,” Kate admitted. “He could decline even the finest of ports and would drink an occasional sherry just to be sociable, but a whiskey of quality was manna to him. Upon occasion, he would come upon a particularly excellent bottle and he would nurse it along, doling it out to himself dram by dram. Sometimes, when I became older, he would let me taste and explain the qualities that made that particular bottle choice.”

Her voice was tender, filled with the fondness of memory, but there was an undertone of sadness. “He’s gone, isn’t he, your father?”

“Rolica,” Kate confirmed.

“A botched business if ever there was one, Lake’s charge. Shows the kind of damage an officer can do when he takes too much on himself.” Duncan shook his head. “So your father and your husband were soldiers both.”

“I was raised upon the drum.”

Her voice was a like the lapping of waves on a distant shore, and Duncan gave himself over to the peaceful sound, letting it soothe the turmoil within.

“Papa wanted